#cannot describe why the Q word makes me squirm but it always always does and always will. and i know it's wholly personal. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quentinsquill · 5 years

Text

Fic: “Turnabouts, Treaties and Truffles” (The Magicians)

Author: Lexalicious70

Fandom: The Magicians

Warnings: None

Rating: Teen and Up

Word Count: 5,215

Summary: After a magical malfunction in a Neitherlands fountain, Eliot and Quentin find themselves body swapped the day before a visiting king is set to attend a dinner that will cement a treaty critical to Fillory’s inhabitants. Can Margo transform their Moderately Socially Maladjusted king into what visiting royalty and his courtiers expect, or will it all fall in around them?

Author’s Notes: This is for week 4 of the @whitespiresarmory’s Challenge theme, “Body Swap.” All mistakes are my own. I don’t own The Magicians, etc., writing is like air for me, so that’s why I do this. Comments and kudos are magic: Enjoy!

Read it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20004787

Turnabouts, Treaties and Truffles

By Lexalicious70 (all_hale_eliot)

“El, are you sure we need all this?”

Eliot turned and regarded Quentin with a stare that was half disbelief, half offense. Margo scoffed from somewhere behind Eliot’s form, currently that of a startled exclamation point, and Eliot motioned to the dozen or so bottles of wine in the cart between them.

“Of course we need it all, Q! Royalty is visiting! Do you want to serve them Kool-Aid in jelly jars?”

Quentin struggled to push the cart along the aisle. Outside, Manhattan buzzed with its usual constant activity, and the upscale liquor store where the three magicians shopped hummed with conversation and the constant noise from the multiple checkout lines near the exit. `

“No, of course not, it just seems kind of like, overkill, that’s all.”

“There’s no such thing as overkill when it comes to entertaining royalty—especially royalty that may or may not be willing to sign a treaty with you at the end of the evening.” Eliot curled a long finger at him as they rounded the corner into another aisle. “And that’s our goal. Fillorian winemaking is still in its infancy, and we want to do our best to impress King Idri and his people.”

“Speaking of which, we better wrap this up.” Margo said as she plucked Eliot’s pocketwatch from his vest and checked the time. “We’ve only got about 26 hours to set all this up, and we still have to go over the menu with Tick.”

“I hope the wine travels okay through the fountains,” Quentin said as Eliot chose one final bottle of rosette before heading toward the registers. “Do you think it might sour?”

“We’ll ward it, Q, don’t worry.” Eliot pulled some bills from his wallet and handed them over to the cashier, who cashed him out and gave him a wide smile along with his change.

“Thank you!” Her gaze lingered on him and Quentin shook his head as they left the store and headed into the alley with the boxes of wine.

“Don’t you ever get tired of people hitting on you?”

“It usually doesn’t mean much to me, Q.” He replied as he watched Quentin fish the traveling button from his Sharo bag. A wink and a joining of hands put the three magicians in the Neitherlands a moment later, near the fountain that would take them to Fillory. Quentin frowned.

“Usually? So when is it meaningful?”

“When you do it,” Eliot grinned, delighted as Quentin’s ears and neck turned pink. He touched the end of Quentin’s nose with the tip of his long index finger. “You are so cute when you’re jealous of strangers!”

“I was not jealous! Just . . . all the attention you get, especially as high king. It must feel pretty great.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes not.” Eliot said as he warded the wine boxes and sent them through the fountain, where he knew Tick or one of his people would be waiting to take them to the castle. “Ready?” He asked, and Margo frowned.

“I hate these fucking fountains! It always makes me feel like I’m some cosmic enema being squirted up the multiverses’ colon!”

“Margo, I cannot stress this enough: eeww.” Eliot replied, taking a deep breath before he dove into the fountain. Quentin jumped in at the same time in a clumsy half-dive, and as they drifted up toward the surface that would take them to Fillory, a magical surge made the water bubble. Eliot struggled to hold his breath as his inner ear went haywire and sent signals to his stomach that vomiting was imminent. He caught a glimpse of Quentin, his eyes rolling, before another surge seemed to knock his consciousness from his body. His head broke the surface of the water and he was aware of strong, sure arms grabbing his own before darkness took him and he went down like a hard-tagged boxer.

*****

“Eliot? Eliot, wake up!”

The voice traveled down a long hall of semi-consciousness and Eliot groped for it like a drowning man with a floating rubber donut. Sounds and awareness crowded his brain.

“Eliot!”

He turned his head and coughed up a fair amount of the fountain’s strange, thin water to reply to the voice, when his own answered from several feet away.

“What . . .what happened?”

Eliot opened his eyes. He was staring up at Fillory’s slate-colored sky with its massive crescent moon, the spires of his castle visible. He struggled to sit up but his limbs felt wrong, like they were unfamiliar. Tick leaned over him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Easy now, your majesty. You had quite a struggle returning here!”

“What happened?” Eliot asked, then put a hand to his throat as he cleared it.

Must be the water . . . that didn’t sound like me at all.

“Tick, what happened?” He asked again, but the voice persisted. And not just any voice.

It was Quentin’s voice.

“What—what’s going on?” His own voice asked, but from several feet away, as if he’d suddenly learned to throw it. He turned his head and found himself looking at—

“What the fuck?” The other him asked, amber eyes wide. Eliot looked down at himself, but himself wasn’t where he was anymore. The body he stared down at was clothed in baggy jeans and a green sweater. A leather strap crossed his chest at an angle and he reached down to touch it.

Quentin’s bag. But why am I—

“Eliot?” The other him asked, the tone rising with an anxiety so familiar he marked it at once as Quentin’s. He sat up, and the central gravity of the body his consciousness currently occupied told him it wasn’t his own.

“Oh, fucking Christ!” Margo stepped into his line of vision as she raised both hands, making a square of her fingers so she could look at him, then at the other him—Quentin—through a lens of magic. Tick stood nearby, his fingers tapping against each other as he looked from one king to another. Margo sighed and glanced at the fountain. “Something went bugshit on our way back here! I felt it—some kind of magical surge.”

“But what happened?” Quentin got to his—Eliot’s—feet and swayed like a newborn colt. He took a few stumbling steps to the fountain, looked in at his reflection, and gave a wavering cry as he put both hands to his face. “Oh shit! Shit, shit, shit!” He turned to look at Eliot, his eyes huge and wet. “I’m not me! I’m not me anymore, oh nonononono—”

“Quentin?” Eliot took a few steps forward as he tried to get a handle on being much shorter than he was used to. Quentin’s bag thumped against his chest and he paused to take it off and set it aside. “Q . . . that is you in there, isn’t it?”

“Uh huh!” A few tears coursed down Eliot’s face and Eliot reached out to grasp his own shoulders, frowning as he had to reach up to do so.

“Okay. And I’m—in here, so don’t freak out on me, okay? We got switched somehow, it was probably that magical surge we all felt!”

“We have to find a way to reverse it!” Quentin said, gripping his own forearms with Eliot’s big hands. “My magic is all scrambled, I don’t dare try to cast!”

“Then fucking don’t!” Margo stepped forward. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re all going to go to the castle, and we’re going to look in the library to see if there’s a cure for this freaky Fillorian Friday shit. Then we’re going to fix it.” She eyed Quentin. “Quentin, you have got to quit crying because I don’t think I can handle seeing your expressions on Eliot’s face!” She marched forward, pulled a handkerchief from Eliot’s vest pocket, and cleaned off his face with precise, businesslike strokes. “There.” She tucked the hankie back where it belonged. “Now come on. Tick? Bring the wine!”

“Yes, your grace!” Tick nodded as he juggled the boxes. Eliot picked up Quentin’s bag and followed Margo toward the long path that led to Whitespire’s main gates.

***

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Eliot said for the fourth time that hour as he and Quentin stood in front of the large, full-length mirror in the royal dressing room. Quentin nodded, his expression miserable.

“I can’t either. This feels so weird, El . . . I can sense your magic and it feels so different from mine. And your body, it’s—” Quentin held his hands out and studied their shape and size. “I feel like a giant!”

“And I feel very . . . compact,” Eliot replied, looking up at his own face. “And does your shoulder always ache this way?” He touched it under the sweater’s material, but the synthetic skin the centaurs had used to repair Quentin’s badly-wounded shoulder gave off no sensation.

“No. The muscles around the prosthetic get sore when we travel through the fountains, but other than that, I usually forget it’s there.” He paused and tried to smooth down Eliot’s dark curls. They were soft and much thicker than his own fine, tawny hair, which most people described as ‘floppy.’ “Do you think Margo and Josh will find anything about this in our library?”

“I hope so, Q. No offense to you, but I’m a lot more comfortable being in my own body.” He turned away from the mirror, squirming in Quentin’s oversized sweater. Quentin glanced after him and then pulled the waistbands of Eliot’s tailored slacks and boxers open to peek inside.

Whoa.

“Bad news!” Margo said as she and Josh entered the room, causing Quentin to start and adjust the slacks. To his relief, she was looking through a spellbook as she spoke.

“What kind of bad news?” Eliot asked, and she sighed and closed the book.

“The kind that means we didn’t find a cure. We have something that’s close—” Margo held up the spellbook. “But the reversal spell we found only applies if the switching was cast by another magician, not caused by a magical surge. We’re going to have to ask the librarians for help, but that means calling in a favor.”

“I’ll go,” Josh nodded. “I have a friend who knows someone who knows one of the librarians. Hopefully that should be enough to get me in. In the meantime, you two just, uh—chill out.”

“Sure,” Eliot drawled. “We’ll play charades.”

“If you guys start having an existential crisis, Margo knows where I keep my good kush.” Josh opened a portal and stepped through it. Margo set the spellbook aside and faced her friends.

“There’s more bad news. King Idri and his people are already on their way, and there’s no way we can cancel tomorrow night’s banquet.”

“But—he’s expecting to be entertained by High King Eliot!” Quentin said.

“I know, Q.”

“But I’m not High King Eliot!”

“Also noted.”

“Then what are we going to do? Margo, you have to stall them when they arrive! Say that I’m—that Eliot—is sick or something! We can’t have the banquet this way!”

“I have to agree with Q here, Bambi,” Eliot put in, and Margo winced.

“Okay. First, that sounded very weird coming out of Quentin’s mouth so please, let’s not, ever again, and two, you agreeing will not change the fact that King Idri will be beyond offended if we delay the banquet. Delayed banquet, unsigned treaty, very good chance of war in the next six months!” Margo ticked these facts off her fingers. “There’s really only one thing we can do.” She looked over at Quentin, housed in her best friend’s body, and sighed. “I’m going to have to teach you how to be High King Eliot.”

***

“No, that’s not it at all!”

Margo sighed, the sound filled with frustration, as she watched Quentin cross the room in Eliot’s body.

“You’re rounding your shoulders and walking like you’re waiting for some cosmic ape to throw shit at you from the sky!”

Quentin looked down at Eliot’s feet, dressed in calf-high black leather boots with a block heel.

“Do I have to wear these?”

“You’d rather meet King Idri in a pair of Nikes and your grubby grey sweats?” Margo asked. “Come here, come look in the mirror.” She tugged him over to the full-length mirror in the corner. “Look how you stand, Q! That’s not now a king holds himself! Straighten your spine, lift your chin—better!” Margo nodded. “Now, think about how Eliot approaches you, about the way he moves.”

“I can’t move like him!”

“Of course you can, dummy! You’re in his body, aren’t you? Look—like this.” She turned him and put her hands on his hips. “Now walk! Confident strides . . . open your stance up, Q!” She pushed at his hips from behind as he walked. “You can’t walk like some eunuch monk!”

“I don’t walk like a eunuch monk!” Quentin snapped, glancing at her over his shoulder. “If you want me to do this, quit insulting me!”

“You guys sound so married right now,” Eliot said from the doorway, leaning against the jamb, his arms folded. Quentin blinked at him.

“What are you wearing? Or more accurately, what did you put on me?”

“Just a Fillorian outfit I had Tick bring me. You never dress like a king, Q . . . and look how nice you look!” Eliot gave a slow turn, showing off the black trousers that flared at the ankle, the black boots, the ivory shirt and dark blue blazer. A silver stick pin with Whitespire’s crest glittered on the blazer’s breast. Margo smiled.

“You should let El dress you more often.”

“Can we focus on—whatever it is we’re trying to teach me here?” Quentin complained, and Margo shook her head.

“No more walking lessons: we need to move on to banqueting. Come on.” She took his hand and led him to the dining hall, where Tick had made up several different place settings.

“As High King, you sit at the edge of the table.” She pulled out Eliot’s grand chair and tugged him into it as if the body he was inhabiting wasn’t more than a foot taller than her own. “Now, as king, you command over the proceedings.” She motioned to the place settings. “You’ve dined at a few banquets with us before, so you probably already know how to use all the silverware.”

“Uhm. Well? Usually I just kind of—fake it. No one really notices me at those big parties.”

“Well guess what, Coldwater, there’s going to be plenty of noticing now!” Margo pointed to the silverware. “You start at the outer edge with your clam fork. If we have escargot, you’ll have a fork with two tines, not four. No one will eat until you touch your food, and the courses change as you command. You’ll also lead the course of dinner conversation.”

“Conversation?” Quentin balked. “Margo, you know that I’m not—”

“I know, you’re a level 100 introvert with the social graces of a confused flour beetle.”

“Rude!” Quentin frowned, and Margo pointed at him.

“Yes! That’s the attitude I want to see during the banquet!”

“But how am I supposed to possibly remember all this?” Quentin asked. Margo put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be sitting at your right hand as High Queen, and you can always follow my lead. Just be imperious, confident, and commanding! That’s what King Idri will expect and it’s the only way we’re going to earn his respect and that treaty.”

“Do you really think I can pull this off?” Quentin asked, and Margo and Eliot traded a glance over his head.

“We know it’s not going to be easy,” Margo said at last. “But with a little work and some dumb luck, we’ll get through it.” She patted his shoulder. “For Fillory, Q.”

“For Fillory,” he sighed.

***

“You look every inch the High King of Fillory.”

Margo stood next to Quentin as they looked in the mirror together. They’d dressed Eliot’s long, lean form in grey and black brocade edged with gilded stitching that gleamed and caught the light with every movement. Margo had arranged his jade crown just so, with a few errant yet artful curls tumbling onto his forehead. The black boots had been shined to a mirrorlike surface, and a chatoyant pendant hung around Eliot’s long, slender neck, bringing out the flecks of gold and amber in his eyes.

“As far as I know, High Kings don’t get stress diarrhea.” Quentin touched the pendant. Margo gave an amused scoff.

“They kind of left that out of the Fillory books, didn’t they.”

“Yeah.”

“Q . . . I know this is hard, okay? But I know you can do it. El and I will be there, and we’ll do our best to try and get you through it.”

“Thanks. I just . . . I’m not Eliot. I’m not what King Idri expects to see, and there’s a million ways I can fuck up or offend him!”

“Let me tell you a secret about Eliot Waugh.” Margo led him over to a chair and pulled the vanity seat over to sit in front of him. “About 98 percent of Eliot’s confidence and bravado comes from that exact fear. The parties and dinners he’s thrown at the cottage—think about it, Q. Everything has to be right, and it has to go exactly as he plans it. So what does he do with that fear? He chases it into a corner, slaps a yoke around the fucker’s neck, and puts it to work. He lets it drive him. The perfection you see when you look at him—it’s a clever illusion. Of course, being as good-looking as he is helps—a lot—because some people appreciate surface details. So if you get stuck out there, just keep that in mind: being High King of Fillory is 90 percent attitude, i.e., looking you have control of your anal sphincter 24/7, and ten percent making your fear work in your favor. Got it?”

“Uhm—yeah, I think so.”

“No uhms!” Margo tapped the end of Eliot’s long nose with one manicured nail. Outside, in the hallway, a triumvirate of horns blew, announcing the start of the banquet.

“Oh God,” Quentin groaned, and Margo tugged at his hand.

“Sphincter control!” She hissed as she opened the bedroom door and slipped her arm through his. She wore a dress of fabric so light it almost seemed to dance as she moved. The colors changed with the light, iridescent blues, lavenders and seafoam, and the cut left her shoulders bare. Her crown glimmered.

“I forgot to tell you—you look really pretty,” Quentin stage whispered as they entered the banquet hallway, and the corners of Margo’s cupid’s-bow lips turned upward as Eliot joined them, dressed in a dark blue Fillorian suit, Quentin’s tawny hair braided with gold filigree that gave Quentin pause—he’d never thought to do such a thing.

“Thanks, Q.”

“Presenting the Children of Earth, rulers of Fillory, its land, its oceans and people!” Tick announced as they stepped into the dining hall. “High King Eliot, High Queen Margo, and King Quentin!”

“Chin up, Q!” Margo whispered as they entered the room together. King Idri, a muscled, handsome black man in his middle age stood at the opposite end of the table, his complement around him. He caught and held Quentin’s eye and Quentin fought the urge to look away—eye contact topped the list of social constructs he despised—but finally Idri nodded and inclined his head. His people sat, and Tick cleared his throat.

“We welcome King Idri of Loria and his most glorious complement! Ruler of the Organ Mountains, of the Crooked Forest, and the Cock Barrens!”

Quentin bit the inside of his cheek as the urge to snort laughter all over everything rose in his throat. Margo squeezed his hand and he glanced over the assembly. Remembering Margo’s instruction, he sat and gestured for the others to do so as well. He avoided looking directly at Eliot, still housed in his body, as the visual was distracting and invited Quentin’s anxiety to build. Tick and his people began to bring out platters of food, and King Idri filled his plate.

“This is quite a feast.”

Quentin counted to five before replying to squash any pauses in his words.

“We wanted to honor your visit and share the bounty of Fillory’s land and sea with you, your majesty.” Quentin glanced down at his silverware to see a clam fork on the outermost edge of the arrangement. Tick set a plate of fresh clams at his right hand and Quentin picked up the fork. “It’s not often we entertain people of such high renowned.” Quentin used the fork to open one of the clams as he spoke, but Eliot’s hands seemed to betray him. The clam squirted from his hand and he watched, wide-eyed, as it sailed across the table. Margo slapped the thing down before it could travel far and gave Quentin a brief but outraged glance. Idri, who was pulling chicken meat off the thigh he’d taken from the platter, hadn’t noticed the flying clam. Quentin dropped the clam fork and pulled a bowl of vegetable soup in front of him instead. “We—we’re very honored by your visit.”

A noise escaped Quentin from nearby, a noise Margo recognized as Eliot’s ‘we’re fucked’ sigh. She glanced over and gave a slight shake of her head.

Keep it together, El!

“Ah, but is it our company or the treaty you desire, King Eliot?” Idri answered as he popped a piece of chicken into his mouth.

“Can’t it be both? Especially when the treaty will benefit both our lands.”

“I believe the benefits will be greater for Fillory,” Idri replied as he tore more chicken off a drumstick. “And as you know, my people are not entirely convinced about this royal family’s motives.”

“Uhm—” Quentin’s eyes bugged as Margo kicked his shin under the table. “What I mean is—we’ll do all we can for Loria if you agree to the treaty. Isn’t it better to agree to peace rather than risk the well-being of our land and people with war?”

“Perhaps. If I were concerned with losing such a war.”

Quentin felt a tremor in his chest at the words, a kind of rumbling energy that responded to the veiled threat. He ate a few bites of soup and mentally scrambled for words.

“It’s my view that war isn’t beneficial for anyone, no matter their might.��

The older king made a show of ripping some stubborn tendons from his drumstick.

“Kingdoms are made in such ways, High King Eliot.”

“There are other ways to advance civilization!” Quentin replied, his tone teetering on annoyance.

“What I think King Eliot means is—” Margo began, seeing Quentin’s ire in Eliot’s amber eyes, and Idri turned toward her.

“You would speak for your king, and know his thoughts?” He nearly scoffed it, and Margo caught the narrowing of Quentin’s eyes: Eliot’s temper was on the rise.

“Why don’t we all share some wine?” Eliot broke in. “King Eliot? We have that collection of earth wines that King Idri and his people might enjoy?”

“Yes! Right, uh—wine! Tick, if you would?” Quentin asked, and Idri sat back in his chair, his expression suggesting he’d won the verbal spar.

***

The banquet wore on. All the bottles of wine the royals had brought from earth were opened and consumed, and Quentin fought to maintain Eliot’s mannerisms as that odd sensation in his chest grew stronger with each passing hour. King Idri was as skilled with words as he was rumored to be with his sword, something Quentin’s mental wheelhouse wasn’t well equipped to handle. He drank wine to manage his anxiety and felt nothing but relief when Tick announced that the dessert course was ready. The servants poured more wine as four more brought an enormous layer cake from the kitchen. It was dressed in layers of yellow frosting and festooned with edible flowers. As the servants carried it in, Quentin winced as one of Idri’s people said something to the king and he boomed laughter that carried a mocking edge and picked at the fraying edges of Quentin’s temper. He closed his eyes.

Barely thought the thought.

The cake rose from its decorative tray, sailed across the room, and struck King Idri square in the face. Yellow frosting spattered onto the table, his chair, his people. The room went silent, horrified. Margo clapped a hand over her mouth and Eliot stared, Quentin’s face a mask of horror mixed with realization. Idri remained still until most of the cake fell from his face into his lap, where it stained his silken trousers.

“Oh my God,” Quentin groaned, a sudden clarity gluing him to his seat. A memory echoed up, unbidden.

And that’s how I found out I was telekinetic.

Idri groped for his napkin and Quentin jumped to his feet before the other king could declare war on him and the rest of Fillory.

“Your majesty, I . . .” Quentin fumbled for words. His anxiety jumped into the mental driver’s seat and popped the clutch. “This is all my fault, please, I’m not who you think I am, I tried—”

Idri wiped his face clean and scowled.

“Explain what you mean, King Eliot!”

“There was an accident—some kind of magical surge at the fountain that brings us from the Neitherlands to Fillory. The truth is, I’m not High King Eliot. He is.” Quentin pointed to who everyone saw as himself, who currently had one hand over his face in a gesture of supreme disbelief. “And I’m King Quentin . . . uhm—the lesser king. That surge, it transferred our minds into each other’s bodies and we knew cancelling this banquet would’ve offended you and so we tried to make the best of it but Eliot has telekinesis—a natural kind of magic that I don’t know how to handle and—oh God I’m so sorry.”

Silence filled the room as Idri took in the information, and then Idri’s dark eyes lit up as he began to laugh. Quentin, Margo and Eliot exchanged stunned glances as the big man continued to guffaw and wipe his face clean.

“B-by Ember’s beard!” Idri said at last. “I knew there was something afoot but I couldn’t place it! Oh!” He chuckled and pointed at Quentin, then Eliot. “So you are he, and he . . .” More laughter. Quentin sighed.

“I’m afraid so. Please King Idri, forgive us,” Quentin said. “Margo, can you cast Schak’s Cleansing Spell, please? I don’t really trust my casting after that.”

“Sure.” Margo got to her feet.

“King Idri, if I might ask, what did you find so amusing when I was sure you’d simply have us all slaughtered?” Eliot asked as Margo magically cleaned away the cake.

“Your story of how the fountains caused you to switch bodies. The unpredictability of magic and the trouble it causes young magicians! When I was a young man, I thought it would be the pinnacle of romance to fill my intended’s bedchamber with roses. She loved them, you see. But the spell was too powerful for someone of my skill to control. Her parents’ home overflowed with roses. They filled every space, broke windows and doors, and even the roof! Her father had to help me reverse the spell—once I found the courage to admit it had been I who cast it.”

“We tried to find a way to reverse it,” Quentin admitted. “But there was no time before the banquet and we didn’t want to offend you by calling it off.”

“Your courage in the face of magic’s whims impresses me, King Quentin. And you too, High King Eliot, High Queen Margo. Come . . . I know of a spell that can repair what it has wrought, and once things are back in their proper order, we can go about signing that treaty.”

***

“Hey . . . are you okay?”

Quentin glanced up. Eliot stood in his bedchamber’s doorway, the usual grace back in his form, his consciousness back where it belonged, thanks to Idri.

“Yeah El, I’m fine.” Quentin beckoned him in. “You?”

“A bit of a headache, but nothing a few glasses of wine won’t help.” He handed Quentin a parchment. “Idri signed the treaty.”

“And all it took was my frayed nerves and a telekinetic cake to the face. Who knew?” Quentin glanced over the document and signed it under Eliot’s name. Eliot pulled a chair over and sat down to face his friend.

“Q . . . I want you to know that I’m really proud of how you handled King Idri.”

“What? I fucked it all up! I used your telekinesis to shove a four-tier layer cake in his face!”

“You did.” Eliot flashed him a grin. “And I honestly don’t blame you. He’s a total DILF but God he’s arrogant! But you handled yourself well before that, Q, and I wanted to let you know that Margo and I are really proud. We know how hard it must have been for you.”

“What’s hard is being High King,” Quentin replied. “And maybe I don’t tell you often enough that I appreciate how difficult that is for you. Everyone wanting your attention, your ear, your thoughts . . . and there’s really nowhere you can escape from it. I guess I thought it was wine, fine food and the crown but . . .” Quentin shook his head. “There’s so much more to it, isn’t there.”

“There is.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize that before.”

“You’re forgiven.” Eliot rose and tugged Quentin to his feet before sliding a long arm around his shoulders. “I had Tick order another cake from the royal baker—a little something special for the three of us. C’mon . . . I promise I won’t throw any at you.”

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” Quentin asked as they walked down the hallway together.

“You should be proud of yourself, Q! After all, you introduced a famous historical ideal to the people of Fillory.”

“I did? What?”

“Let them eat cake!”

FIN

#Whitespire's Armory #The Magicians #my fic

2 notes · View notes